Help Seeking

I have been working on a piece of research that looks into help seeking by women experiencing domestic violence. Who do they turn to when they ask for help? Often it is members of their family, friends or neighbours. Help seeking is a tricky thing to do in circumstances that risk violent repercussions and can elicit little sympathy from supporters who expect the woman to leave at the first sign of violence, as if this was straightforward.

I was interested to watch a drama on ITV called, ‘Angela Black’ that illustrated some of the dilemmas of help seeking. The heroine had few female supporters. The most helpful was a friend, ditched 8 years earlier, who provided material and psychological support. In the end, the protagonist turned to one of her male tormentors to help her carry out her plan to get back her two children. I thought that this was stretching credibility a bit but I had to remember that this was a story not a documentary.

In my own work, I have become interested in the notion of interdependence and how it might shape our attitudes to those who ask for help. Much has been written about the notions of dependence and independence by the disability sector, as the disabled have demanded greater autonomy and independence as their right.

Angela, the heroine, acted mostly alone, taking control of her situation, building to a violent conclusion as she wreaked revenge on her husband. In the final scene, she was seen walking in a street with her two boys, looking defiant and perhaps a bit worried – I had a sense that she did not think her relationship was over, simply because the husband would demand access to the children. But the picture of the nuclear family remained – there was no supporters surrounding her. She had overcome dependence on the mental health services (completely delivered by women) amongst other institutions to establish her independence and regain control of her life and her children. She was strong because of her inner resilience, not a weak help seeker.

Strategies with domestic abuse survivors and victims often emphasize resilience and empowerment in the women themselves without providing them with many resources. In this loss of control, I can see the parallels with those with a disability or those with a chronic illness, such as myself.

How do we ask for help that maintains our dignity and allows us autonomy in decision making? Feminists have suggested that women are better at getting help because our boundaries are more porous stretching across generations – elders and children – and the multiplicity of arenas we occupy, both public and private. These factors may provide more opportunities for friendship and neighbourliness. Feminists and some disability writers stress interdependence and point out that we will all rely on others at some time or other and we should ask for help now and again (and be brave enough to keep asking) – and offer it too.

Recently, I asked some friends and my brother to help me plant a wildflower hedge. Initially, I thought I would hire a company to do it for me but then I thought it would be a good social event for friends who liked gardening and I could catch up with those I had not seen for some time. So I asked and they all agreed to come. I was delighted, the hedge was planted and we had tea, cake and chat afterwards. Such were the rewards of acknowledging my interdependence.

I suspect that Angela does not have a bright future – maintaining her control and her isolation will take a lot of effort and some anger. The moral of the story did not seem to be make more friends of the type who was so helpful, but rely on your own cunning to outwit the baddies. From the research I have read, those with rich and sustaining friendship networks go on to more fulfilling and safer lives.

Why do we invest so much in this notion of independence? Is it a male value that we have all bought into – a self-made man as the apogee of success?

I have continued to comment on strangers’ choice of clothing. I complimented a man on a particularly fine hat he was wearing. He was so pleased and introduced me to his wife who had made it. It was a small gesture but for a couple of minutes we were almost a community!

Other papers in this research, suggest to me that neighbourhoods are important. Papers reporting on community building activities in Uganda, Vietnam and Sheffield to help women who suffer from partner violence. Those countries with a more community centred health system, with greater expectations of neighbourly support, such as Vietnam and Uganda, seemed to have had some success in raising local support to prevent violence, whilst those abused women displaced to a housing development in Sheffield learnt to rely on each other.

Female collectives are often portrayed in film as riven with conflict, see ‘Miss America’, and feminists as fairly intimidating, as seen in the recent film about the demonstration against the Miss World contest. Feminists can be funny, as the graffiti responding to sexist ad campaigns has shown and almost all the punch lines in female stand ups has feminist roots. But there may be more than an angry tinge to their routines because of injustice that may be off-putting.

Male collectives are portrayed sympathetically such as in a recent film about a young Indian mathematician fetching up in Cambridge at the start of the 20th century where he was nurtured by a father figure and a motherly character. The dons were presented as pursuing mathematical proofs disinterestedly, and, despite a little racism, came through in the end for the outsider and accepted him into their club.

Both these examples of the collective provide the individual with agency. The Angela example leads me to suspect that in asserting her individual power and providing for her boys will not lead her to pursue strategies of interdependence.